One of my preferred condiments! (Baxters Mint Sauce)

Member Name: wendybull

Product:	Baxters Mint Sauce
Date:	20/03/08 (199 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Opens up your taste buds.

Disadvantages: Strong smelling to others at the table.

I am not a huge fan of adding condiments to my dinners and there are only a couple of things I ever use. One of these is Mint Sauce.

Traditionally Mint Sauce is meant to couple lamb and a gorgeous Sunday roast dinner of lamb is delicious with a dollop of mint sauce nestled nicely on the plate next to the meat. However, although beef is traditionally meant to be shared with Horseradish Sauce, I can think of nothing fouler, and therefore like a nice teaspoon of mint sauce with my beef as well. To be honest we eat far more beef than lamb when it comes to Sunday roasts so my jar of mint sauce is nicely used up.

Some people like theirs to be a little less thick than it comes in the jar, and my mother in law is one of those. She likes to spoon hers out and add a few drops of vinegar to a little bowl to mix it up in. The mint sauce is vinegar based anyway, so all this does is make the sauce thinner and there is more "sauce" in comparison to mint leaves.

I love mine straight from the jar though and simply spoon out and plop on the plate.

The mint leaves are a dark green and very rich colour and aesthetically they are very appealing. If you are posh enough to want to design a pattern with the sauce on the edge of the plate it can be quite stunning but I am more of a dolloper and like it in blobs across the top of the meat, mixing in with the gravy. It actually ends up looking quite disgusting but the taste is divine.

The taste is what makes me buy this of course and thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that it is the vinegar flavour as much as the mint that makes it so appealing for me. It is a very strange mix to be honest because I would never dream of adding splashes of vinegar straight from the bottle to my Sunday Roast Beef, yet I am more than happy to splash it on if it is mixed with some chopped mint leaves.

The mint is a definite mint smell and taste, but it is not reminiscent of chewing gum or polos. You won't be chewing on your meat thinking of blowing a bubble, however the mint is certainly there in the forefront of the flavour. They have got a very good balance in terms of mint and vinegar and the strength of both because whatever you have added it to will still be able to infuse its own flavour through too.

Why Baxter's Mint Sauce instead of any other? Well I have found that it is the most preferred one I have come across in terms of size of chopped mint leaves and the thickness of the vinegar it is added to. It has a kind of quality to it that really does show though in the taste and for this reason I do tend to plump for this version instead of any other. I have tried Colman's and Sainsbury's own version, and while I would buy Sainsbury's own again I was not really struck on Colman's.

For 99p a jar, roughly, Baxter's Mint Sauce is my favourite and it will easily last you a good few months, unless you start adding it to your vegetables every night (I went through a stage of this) especially peas, which is simply delicious.

Not had mint sauce for a while? - buy a jar and try it on your roast dinner next time - it will open up your taste buds again!

Summary: RECOMMENDED xx